


The Spark That Is Us

by sungjiins



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dowoon-centric, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Slow Build, based on greek mytho, dowoon is a caring boy, gets kinda violent, soft soft soft, will add more tags when i know what tf im writing, younghyun is adorable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-08 14:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungjiins/pseuds/sungjiins
Summary: " after a wild feud in the reaches of olympus, ankhiale channeled all of her anger and instead of expelling it in the form of her signature tendrils of flames, the breaths that exited her poisonous lips were icy. so icy and so powerful that they altered the earth’s climate within the span of a few seconds, converting the previously tropical lands into barren tundras. "Dowoon's so-far steady destiny betrays him with a crossroads. Both ways lead to fire, immeasurable warmth, and a sense of belonging. The path's not pretty but the outcomes seem to be.Or so he assumes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey dudes i'm Back with another briwoon fic!! based on greek mythology again ;D  
> this chapter's sort of a back story and it's just setting the scene, sorry if it's disappointing. will update pretty soon (hopefully).
> 
> [ just incase you're not familiar w/ greek mytho, i'll brief you on it. the titan war happened between the gods and the titans. the major titans were banished to tartarus which is basically greek hell where all the demons live, but some minor ones were allowed to stay in the overworld with the gods.  
> ankhiale IS a real goddess and is the goddess of the warming heat of fire, but the story i've written below isn't legit, i made it up!! pretty sure she's harmless in canon mytho.]

_after the first titan war, zeus, the new lord of the sky, sentenced the eldest titans to eternal imprisonment in the nightmarish depths of tartarus. however, he allowed the younger titans to stay in the pleasant overworld provided that they complied by his rules. they graciously accepted his offer, each resigning to their own duties._

_there was one titan goddess that wasn’t appeased by this, though. ankhiale, the goddess of the warming heat of fire, resented how her father, iapetus, was blamed for uranus’ death along with his other brothers. as her pleas to zeus for her father’s acquittal went unanswered, a vengeful streak began to surface inside of her, which gradually became stiflingly heated._

_ankhiale was aware of how precious the humans, crafted by prometheus’ skilled hands, were to zeus and she knew exactly how to make him pay for all the damage he’d done to her family, using the earth-dwellers as bait._

_after a wild feud in the reaches of olympus, ankhiale channeled all of her anger and instead of expelling it in the form of her signature tendrils of flames, the breaths that exited her poisonous lips were icy. so icy and so powerful that they altered the earth’s climate within the span of a few seconds, converting the previously tropical lands into barren tundras._

_since then, the humans on earth have survived in hyperborean conditions, permanently doomed to a life of subsistence in the unfeeling snow._

\---

He was so, so cold.

And it was so, so quiet.

The scarf of silence that was wrapped tightly around the perimeter of the woods seemed to add to the harsh, bleak environment of it. A subsisting but nevertheless dying zephyr caught itself in his ears. Its chirping whistle felt more berating than calming; it was mocking him. It was able to fly away from unwanted situations. Dowoon sadly wasn’t.

Crystals of yellowing snow let out an obligatory crunch under his feet and he could almost sense the deadness of the earth beneath him, even if it lay four feet under the stabbing snow. If the rumours of Mother Earth being a giant jewellery box, studded with gold and silver on the inside, were true, he certainly couldn’t tell. And he wouldn’t have believed it either way; everyone knew that Gaea was long-gone, or she perhaps would have done something about the condition of this place. Rotting away under meters of chipped ice right before her unconscious eyes.

He’d been sent by Aenon to gather some birch logs for igniting something close to a hearth fire. Dowoon knew that wishing for a full-fledged blaze in the house was futile; real fires could only be lit by coal, not these moistened low-quality twigs. And unfortunately for him and everyone else in his village, coal was a precious resource that could only be afforded by the wealthiest of residents. Others had to make do with thick jumpers and rags that barely protected them from frostbite.

The boy had developed a specialty for picking out birch trees after years of practice, confirming their presence with just a glance around the proximity. Today was no different. The dwindling group stood in a huddle, as if even they wanted some protection from the perpetually frozen landscape. Beside them lay an iridescent lake that glimmered like an opal in your eyes, only if you were bold enough to admit it. More often than not, the villagers bad-mouthed the lake, old myths claiming that it was one of the resting places of Ankhiale’s body, mutilated and riddled with the consequences of her disobedience.

Axe in hand, he stumbled through the frigid expanse, wanting to get this mundane chore done with. The wind wasn’t encouraging him, dancing past his ears, singing a taunting song that filled Dowoon’s gut with nothing but pure, hot annoyance. With all his willpower, he managed to keep his eyes focused on the prize, vision tunneled to show him the lingering trees and nothing more.

Too bad for him that vision didn’t affect hearing. The infuriating whispers continued to travel in wisps around him, uttering syllables that although unintelligible, seemed to make Dowoon angrier and angrier until he saw nothing, not even the trees. Until he saw nothing but red.

“Cut it out!” he yelled, his mellow but uninvited voice piercing through the stationary air, and disrupting a few birds that were on their way back home.

As expected, the wind did not falter at his demand and continued to sing painfully high-pitched songs that meant nothing to Dowoon. At least, they didn’t for a couple of minutes. Because, as the boy slowly trekked his way across the snow, he could’ve sworn that the wind was humming a gentle melody, one that he recognised. One that had been fed to him as a bedtime lullaby by a pair of painted lips that belonged to a woman once-beautiful. Dowoon liked to think that her thread of life had only been cut by the Fates due to their increasing jealousy at her sheer allure, and nothing more.

She’d been cruelly whisked away from him as soon as he’d turned ten. _The Fates’ will_ , everyone had said, tutting and shaking their heads the way they all do when they have no other condolences to offer. Dowoon didn’t have any choice but to believe the words of the townspeople, whilst knowing that they weren’t true and he resented it. He despised that he was completely clueless as to how his _own mother_ had died. It killed him inside, not knowing the fate of the woman who’d held him so dearly and delicately against her chest; the woman who’d provided him with warmth and comfort notwithstanding the bleakness of their surroundings. 

It had been nine whole years since he’d last heard it, but the lyrics of the tune never failed to remain in his mind. He’d clung on to them after her death, as after all, they were his only souvenirs of the ten years that he’d spent by her side. He remembered exactly how its melodies used to sway in the static, sooty air in a lazy fashion, brushing against his red cheeks ever so slightly. He remembered that upon hearing it, he’d daintily shut eyes as a feeling of comforting warmth washed over his lithe frame. It filled him with a reckless adoration for the person singing it, for his mother.

_the boy with fire in his eyes stands there waiting. it is his soul inside; it keeps him standing. and if the fire goes out, he will freeze in the cold. it is his heat that keeps him living._

Dowoon forgot about the birch trees, forgot why he was standing in the middle of a sparsely decorated field, painted with around five layers of fragile snow. Instead, now fully immersed in the song of the wind, he closed his eyes in the same way he’d been doing for eighteen years and let the memories besiege the walls of his brain like a homely fire. He saw his mother in her prettily embroidered dress, getting ready to take him to the temple. He took in the scent of her invigorating perfume, one that had made him sneeze when he’d been small. His mother had giggled at him and twirled him around in her arms, accompanying the action by a smile so bright that Dowoon was convinced it was capable of melting all the beastly snow in the world.

Then he inhaled and his momentary hypnosis was over.

\---

He returned to the Shack at around eleven in the night, birch logs in tow, both his hands and eyes red and puffy.

All the oil lamps had been blown out, as expected, and the house was a pleasant kind of quiet, something that was much invited after the irritating noise that the wind had been making all day. It was cold, however, and instant worry flared up inside of Dowoon after that realisation. Aenon was usually only covered by a light blanket made of sheepskin that felt more like bad-quality silk whenever Dowoon felt it, worn out by years of use, and would undoubtedly wake up with a cough.

Placing the logs soundlessly near the sooty fire-place, he trudged his way upstairs, footsteps heavy and movements lax. After collecting the logs, he’d felt like wandering around the town a bit more and enjoying its serene ambience; he now regretted it, burdened with sore arms and barely mobile legs. His hands felt raw and vacant without the weight of the jagged bark pressing itself upon them, without the spirited swing of the axe (that he had kind of misplaced…but he wasn’t about to tell Aenon that) coaxing out a layer of sweat from their crevices. Nevertheless, he continued on his journey up the stairs until he finally reached the penultimate, creaky step.

 _He could use a few extra blankets_ , Dowoon thought to himself, carefully letting himself in through the rickety, makeshift cardboard door. The room in front of him was one that he was well acquainted with after seven years of having to endure it. Seven years of living beside Aenon, the only man that was ever trusted by his mother.  
An achromatic stream of moonlight gushed in through windows that let in too much rain, rippling off the surfaces of a few nearby objects and enabling Dowoon to see them despite the haunting darkness. He spied the extra, moth-eaten blankets that they owned dumped conveniently near to him and reached out for them although his arms protested against any further action.

He got a glimpse of the lunar light once more as his eyes looked from the blankets in his calloused palms up to the windows. It was pure and beautiful, and there was nothing more he wanted to do than to reach up and take a piece of it with him. Divide it between him, Aenon, and the portrait of his mother that sat at his desk, gathering dust. He could almost hear her dimpled smile; she would say something encouraging and intelligent if she were here.

He sighed. _If_.

Deciding not to dwell on the past for too long, he inhaled shakily, and began his descent to one of the two bedrooms of the Shack where he assumed Aenon lay. _At least my troubles for the day are over_ , he mused, closing the attic door with haste and hurtling himself down the stairs with little to no precision.

Perhaps he’d thought too soon. Way too soon. In fact, as his left leg buried itself deep inside the hollow wood of one of the more fragile steps, Dowoon reckoned that he’d never thought at such a breakneck speed and with such stupidity in all his life. As piercing splinters of beech embedded themselves into his hapless shin, Dowoon sincerely wished for salvation. Making a silent prayer to Artemis, he accepted his shitty fate, not before letting out a scream so loud that even the neighbours of the opposite block were stirred in their slumber.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " And then out of the blue, Dowoon saw colour.
> 
> It came in the form of a woolen scarf, wrapped tightly around the neck of a boy that Dowoon couldn’t name. Half of his face had taken sanctuary within the apparel and the rest of him was bundled up in a thick coat that made his movements look fatigued. "
> 
> In which an overly talkative and _totally_ unwelcome stranger challenges Dowoon's social ineptitude like nothing has before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes younghyun is actually in this chapter wow go me

Aenon, a bearded man in his seventies, had been chosen as Dowoon’s mother’s godfather back when his hair was the colour of coal and his facial hair comprised simply a moustache. She’d always been his priority, and in turn, Aenon had been hers. Due to this, Dowoon had been constantly visiting the old man since his childhood, and had grown up to think of him as an uncle of sorts.

While his mother was engaged in conversation with Aenon, Dowoon would usually crawl away from her lap and explore the Shack (as his mother had always termed the forlorn-looking house). He would stumble his way across the grimy floor and settle himself on a particularly soft portion of wood, at the foot of the stairs.

His mother was always too invested in her ‘adult’ discussions to pay heed to Dowoon, but she _did_ have a sixth sense when it came to his well-being. On one overcast day at the Shack, Dowoon, getting increasingly bored with his limited territory near the stairs, had decided to man up and venture forth into the unexplored kitchen. He’d been carelessly traipsing his way along the corridor that led to the unseen room, when he placed his weight on a piece of the floor that felt slightly different from the others. It seemed to be a plank that had its own gravity, trying to draw him into the soil below.

And just when Dowoon was convinced that his foot was about to resort to the invincible force, his mother appeared, wrapping her pale arms around his torso, and whisked him away from danger’s grasp. He’d sunken into her embrace then, burying his head into her shoulder, ever so grateful for her motherly intuition.

He’d been four then, naïve and susceptible to making mistakes. He was close to nineteen now and knew that slip-ups were inexcusable, especially when living conditions were getting worse by the year. He’d been four then, with his mother at his side, unconditionally. He was eighteen now, and his mother was gone.

Dowoon was currently sat in the town square, on a pathetic bronze chair whose legs were rickety and edges jagged. It was a matter of time before his inattentive self moved in the wrong way and made him get tetanus on top of all his other injuries, but he decided that he did not care. The wind was biting his ill-covered back, his leg was wrapped in a makeshift cast, and life was shit.

He had no idea why Aenon had suggested that getting fresh air would speed up the process of healing. The ‘fresh’ air that he was being subjected to inhaling consisted of nothing but ash particles and smoke. Sometimes the discordant bawl of a baby would offer company to the pollutants but that was about it. There were no musicians here today, nor had there been any for the past few years. Dowoon sullenly wondered how everything had done a one-eighty so fast and whether it would return to what it had been. He doubted it.

The square wasn’t as busy as it usually was, littered with only a few workers going about their business. Dowoon paid little attention to any of the gossiping women that were on their way to the lake, nor the few that were seated on similar metal benches, smoking and living out their last days. He could name them all with his eyes closed; he’d been living in this insipid town for eighteen years and was sure that he would die there in another eighteen. The continuous snowfall was sure to erase this region’s name from the map, and Dowoon’s lackluster heart would go down with it, melted and forgotten.

It had been a few centuries since Ankhiale’s ever-growing but impromptu wrath changed humanity’s fate but the bitter scene before Dowoon’s eyes told him that time could _not_ heal everything. Everyone around him was a victim of the cruelty that the Titan goddess had unfairly unleashed upon the human race. Everyone around him knew terror and hardship and endurance. They also knew that death couldn’t be much more enjoyable than life, and so they never complained and kept at it.

Dowoon, he knew that he was expected to do the same. Keep his head down and make do like the rest of them. And so he did, never disobeying Aenon’s seemingly never-ending commands, always striving to please the man that had been so close with his late mother.

But sometimes, at rare occasions in the day, he allowed himself to become enveloped in his own mind, full of stars and aspirations and no limits. And his mind offered him this: an effulgent face, looking down at him, chocolate eyes laced with adoration. 

The woman would lean her head down ever so slightly and let her lips part beside his ear. Words flowed out of them like golden silk, smooth and hard to hold on to despite Dowoon’s firm grip.

_“Don’t let them bring you down, my sweet. They’re so grey, the lot of them. No life within. Don’t let yourself become one of them. Never let them destroy the spark inside of you, love, never. You’ll always find truth inside of fire. Never forget that.”_

As he sullenly examined the misery-drenched square, Dowoon realised that he couldn’t find error in her statement. None of the masks of expression worn by the townspeople showed that they bore anything close to a passionate flame inside of them at all. He looked into a cluster of pain-bearing eyes and saw bold irises overflowing with colours everywhere, but upon looking at the crowd as a whole, he could only see a single hue: a churlish, irritable grey.

Dowoon had dreams. He wished to master the lyre, he wished to write breathtaking poems, he wished to be a better singer. Most of all, however, Dowoon wished to be seen as himself, not as an insignificant tool that blended into his colourless surroundings. He wished to shine with his own, unique shade, whether that be lilac, magenta, or azure. To his utter disdain, though, he could feel himself conforming to the dullness of the majority. He could feel himself losing a battle that he’d never realised existed.

And then out of the blue, Dowoon saw colour.

It came in the form of a woolen scarf, wrapped tightly around the neck of a boy that Dowoon couldn’t name. Half of his face had taken sanctuary within the apparel and the rest of him was bundled up in a thick coat that made his movements look fatigued. 

As the boy trudged closer, however, Dowoon could make out that the tired aura that was being let off wasn’t the coat’s doing. His eyes _looked_ utterly weary, slanted downwards and intermittently closing from exhaustion. It seemed like he was running on no sleep and Dowoon felt that his assumption was proved right when the boy slumped down on the seat next to him, letting out an audible sigh.

Dowoon tried his best to look uninterested, but he couldn’t help glancing over at the stranger when he got bored of staring at his hands and brooding over his life. There was just something about this boy that ignited Dowoon’s curiosity, despite his reluctance to admit it. He was someone that wore a scarlet scarf that stood out so strikingly among the dreary, colourless attire that was worn by everyone else. He was someone Dowoon couldn’t _name_ , a fact that was more shocking than anything else. It meant that he was a newcomer, perhaps a foreigner, perhaps a messenger from the gods.

He certainly looked the part, his hair as black as the embers of a relieving fire, as silky as the feathers of Aphrodite’s turtle-doves. From what all Dowoon could see, the boy’s skin was speckless and dusted with a light hue of bronze, accompanied by tinges of rose on his cheeks which were presumably kisses from the unyielding gale.

“Are you alright?”

It was Dowoon’s turn to redden. His cheeks underwent about fifty different shades of red before settling on one that resembled the colour of the stranger’s scarf. He couldn’t believe that he’d been caught staring at a stranger out of all things but here he was, eyes fixated on the floor beneath him and mind trying to cook up any feasible explanation for what he’d been doing.

The stranger seemed to pick up on his sudden awkwardness. “No, no! Uh, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I was just wondering about your leg. What happened to it?”

His leg? He’d completely forgotten about it, to be frank, and this fact flustered him more than it should have. How in hell had he gotten distracted from his agony by the mere presence of this unwelcome stranger?

“My leg. It’s, uh, it’s fine.” Dowoon coughed into his fist, embarrassed that the blush was still pestering his skin.

The boy looked unconvinced. Dowoon wondered why he even gave a shit about a sickly-looking, random teenager who’d never quite been able to grow a stable pair of eyebrows. Didn’t this guy have better things to do than to converse with people like Dowoon, if he were as wealthy as he looked?

“I hope it heals soon, for your sake.” Dowoon was glad that the stranger wasn’t pressing on the matter, or he wouldn’t have known how to deal with the sudden burst of conversation. He watched as the boy delicately loosened the scarf around his neck until it was sloping down his shoulders in cascades. It revealed something shocking and most likely private but Dowoon, being the ever-inquisitive and reckless fool that he was, concentrated his gaze on it anyway.

What crept up from the presently uncovered portion, was a violet bruise, spreading over to the sides of his neck too at further glance. Although it was more or less inconspicuous, it wound a knot of slight unease down in Dowoon’s gut as he cooked up any plausible theory in an attempt to guess what had happened to the boy. A breath later, he realised that he shouldn’t be bothered.

But the moment his eyes met with the stranger’s cocoa-coloured ones, he knew that he’d been caught red-handed (for the second time in ten minutes), and was consequently fucked.

“Got it from bandits,” he clarified with the hint of a smile so unsettling, Dowoon was tempted to get up and flee. Who the hell smiled while talking about their injuries? “Navigating through roads these days is pretty dangerous.”

Dowoon nodded mutely, anxiety clawing at his lungs in response to the train-wreck that this conversation was. He was not at all in the habit of talking to people of his age (or talking to people in general, apart from Aenon) and the fact that he was guilty of ogling a possibly maniacal outsider did not appease him in the least.

“I’m Younghyun, by the way! Probably should’ve introduced myself earlier.”

“Dowoon.”

Younghyun?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " “It’s okay.” Absolutely nothing was okay. Not the newcomer’s disquietude, nor his pink-lipped pout. Especially not the way Dowoon was guardedly ogling Younghyun’s free-of-scarf neck as the latter dived into an explanation as to how they knew one another for the bemused Jaehyung, checking if his own bruises had healed. "
> 
> Dowoon's longing for music, something that's meant to be beautiful and placating, ends up betraying him, leading him straight into an incident that involves an awfully sped-up heart and a familiar stranger.

Younghyun. The word had embedded itself into the grooves of his brain, besieged the walls of his cranium. It had built a tenacious citadel in every vein, every artery of his, immovable and permanent. Every fucking corner of his mind had been embellished by that name and Dowoon was not pleased about it.

He was unlike anyone Dowoon had ever interacted with before. With everyone having their own lives to live and take care of, nobody paid much attention to the problems of others. Compassion and empathy were foreigners to the people of this greying town, and Younghyun was too, no doubt about it. Only foreigners would go out of their way to enquire about a stranger’s injuries whilst having to bear with their own.

Dowoon shook the bewilderment off his shoulders, deciding that he shouldn’t let himself be bothered by somebody who chose to be bothered by others (whatever sense _that_ made), and proceeded to step over the threshold onto the pearly snow that had been shed by the void-like sky overnight. It was nine o'clock or so and his gut was heating up with a craving that he had become accustomed to recognising. It wasn’t hunger; he’d learnt to tolerate that long ago, practically living off rations in his childhood and even now, probably accounting for his thin frame.

No, this particular flame was _humming_. He could practically feel it vibrating within him, deeming his larynx useless. This flame could only be doused by music, something which had been stagnant for too long. Something vicious and feral that could start wars, but also something gentle and placid that had the ability to end them. It was hard to come by nowadays but Dowoon was grateful that he knew of all the subtle nooks and crannies where it could be found.

He was headed to one now, donning a ebonite-coloured winter hat, a bag of possibly stale biscuits in hand. He’d always feel guilty if he infiltrated the Park’s lyre room without offering them something in return. Jaehyung had made it clear that he didn’t want nor need repayment, but Dowoon taking that for an answer would’ve feel like a colossal defeat. So, instead of conceding to exploit his services, Dowoon had explained to the elder that he _was_ going to bring him cookies every week whether Jaehyung liked it or not.

It wasn’t too long of a walk; Dowoon could maintain his pace at a light stroll and still reach the ‘Park Mansion’ in fifteen minutes. He saw it now in all its unkempt glory: moss nibbling at the edges of a few mauve bricks, an army-like clump of weeds dominating the way to the entrance. Dowoon felt that, although it was definitely not what one would call pristine, it stood out like a diamond in a pile of rocks. It had life and energy. It emanated everything Dowoon was trying so hard to instill within himself: warmth and colour.

He’d reached the front door, a rickety wooden piece of work which felt safe to Dowoon despite its run-down state. Curling his almost frozen hands into a firm fist, he rapped once, twice, on the surface of the door, announcing his presence.

Apparently there hadn’t been any need to do that; Jaehyung flung the poorly held-together thing open about a second after his knock and greeted him with a smile so energetic, it almost made Dowoon want to return it.

“So glad you could make it today! We got someone new!”

And without leaving any room for further explanation, Jaehyung placed a firm hold on Dowoon’s wrist and practically started dragging the boy further into the depths of his ‘humble abode’.

“Not even a hello? You treat your guests so poorly, Jae.”

Jaehyung chuckled, brushing his comment off, but lightening his grip on his friend’s pale wrist even so. “You’ll get it once you see this guy. He’s like a demigod or something. Could be the son of Apollo. He was _born_ to sing, I tell you--”

He was forced to stop his sudden burst of reverence for this stranger (thankfully) as the two reached the lyre room, though, incase this god-like newcomer was to pick up on their gist of conversation. Already being able to spot one of the stringed instruments, Dowoon let out a noticeable sigh of exaltation. Their sweet lilts and dulcet melodies were in a way, remedial to him and his ever-pulsing, ever-panicking heart. They never failed to warmly envelope themselves around his whole body, smoothing out the crinkles within it, just as one would a worn-out bedsheet.

Jaehyung, as it seemed, was not apt to paying Dowoon any attention whatsoever on that day because without even leading his friend into the room with his signature smile, as he had always done, he leapt into the airy space with no reluctance in yelping, “I’m back, sorry for the wait!”

And while Dowoon knew it was irrational, he couldn’t help but feel slightly miffed at his friend’s obvious enchantment with the other guy, whoever he was. Dowoon couldn’t be fucked to look at the ‘demigod’ who’d so obviously replaced him, instead choosing to admire the design on a lyre that was suspiciously strewn across the wooden floor. He knew that what he was doing was the opposite of hospitable but could he really be held accountable for the storm unfurling in his gut as he watched a sunlit beam return to Jaehyung’s face? Whose origin was caused by somebody that he’d met just an hour prior?

Eyes still adamantly glued to the floor as if its not-so-gleaming surface was the pinnacle of his day, Dowoon felt Jae budge next to him like he’d finally remembered Dowoon’s existence.

“Introductions, introductions! Okay, so Younghyun, this is Dowoon. Dowoon, this is Yo--”

But Dowoon didn’t have to be told twice. His reaction wouldn’t have changed either way. Hearing Jaehyung utter the name that had plagued his brain non-stop for a week once was enough; hearing it being said _twice_ made it seem more like a curse than simply a friendly repetition.

He whipped his head up from the dust-collecting floor to a level so dangerous that he managed to somehow interlock his gaze with Younghyun’s. Their eyes met and at the same time, a (figurative) Zeus-sized fist met with Dowoon’s ribcage. It hadn’t been a trick of his mind, it hadn’t been an auditory illusion. This red-scarfed dipshit was actually _there_ , hands gently wrapped around the base of a wooden lyre. His tender grasp made it seem as if the instrument was made of priceless gold rather than ordinary holm-oak.

Jaehyung had stopped speaking. He was obviously expecting one of them to perk up and say something fascinating, something interesting. Something that could be followed up by an amicable conversation, one from which they could part as friends. Truth be told, he should’ve known better than to expect a word out of Dowoon’s mouth. He _knew_ that getting Dowoon to talk to people willingly was very much like carrying boulders up a steep hill: impossibly difficult and ultimately fruitless. 

“Hey! We met before, right? At those benches?” Younghyun smiled earnestly and way too brightly. Dowoon nodded somewhat warily, not before regarding the newcomer’s countenance go through a series of confused expressions, his eyebrows knotting and lips jutting into a slight pout.

“Your leg. It healed?” 

Dowoon’s respiratory system took a few seconds to get back into action again. He discreetly peered down at his own, cloth-covered left leg and looked back up to face Younghyun’s strange concern. He’d remembered. He’d remembered about Dowoon’s stupid fucking leg. Even Dowoon had forgotten about his leg. Why and how did this guy possess the capacity to care about a ghost-like kid’s battered body part? 

“It’s okay.” Absolutely nothing was okay. Not the newcomer’s disquietude, nor his pink-lipped pout. Especially not the way Dowoon was guardedly ogling Younghyun’s free-of-scarf neck as the latter dived into an explanation as to how they knew one another for the bemused Jaehyung, checking if his own bruises had healed. They looked to be doing much better than before and what irked Dowoon was the fact that he wasn’t indifferent to this realisation. In fact, he could feel a hint of relief drizzle down upon him as he saw that the marks that imprinted his neck were fading.

“Damn. That’s a pretty big coincidence, huh?” Jaehyung yawned, seemingly already tired of the day despite having been awake for three hours at most. Whenever Dowoon pointed this out, he’d shoot the younger boy a smirk and embark on lazy tangents about the ‘Park style’. On days like this, Dowoon wasn’t sure how he tolerated the nineteen-year old.

An abrupt and strangled yell attacked the lifeless air that Jaehyung’s neighbourhood comprised, averting the attention of the three boys. Younghyun hurriedly placed the lyre atop a three-legged table and Dowoon inhaled sharply, sensing that the sound had come from downstairs.

There was a beat, two, and Jaehyung started striding down the corridor, eyebrows furrowed. “Dad?”  
A mumbled response affirmed the presence of his father and Jaehyung sighed with relief, shooting the two an apologetic look. “Looks like he’s gone and tripped again. I’ll need to get going then, I suppose.” He chuckled in a particularly acrid manner, his disappointment vivid. “‘M sorry that this meeting was so short.” 

He locked eyes with Dowoon, chocolate against coal. “Sorry, man. How about you come over again in the evening? We can share the cookies!” he added with a soft smile that was unique to him and him only. Dowoon returned it this time, however lousy his own turned out to be. In the end, it was a smile, a smile that he hoped conveyed his gratitude.

“And Younghyun, it was so nice to meet you! Come again soon, it was great having you around.” 

How a man could be so accommodating, Dowoon did not know.

How the man’s impartial friendliness felt like a betrayal of sorts as he left the two to themselves, Dowoon also did not know. But what he did know was that he was in the Park fucking ‘mansion’, standing in his favourite room, next to a complete stranger who oddly showed interest in Dowoon’s pathetic left leg’s condition. And the stranger was standing right there, breathing quietly, with the remnants of the grin that he’d offered Jaehyung still scattered across his face like rose petals. The stranger was standing _right there_ in all his god-like glory and if this silence kept up, he was bound to break it, to say something to which Dowoon would not know how to reply.

And that’s why Dowoon broke it first.

“So, you sing?” was what he conjured up, his heart buzzing in a way so erratic, he didn’t know whether to be alarmed or not. He idly wondered when he’d transitioned from somebody that’d been more than stubborn to hate Jaehyung’s new friend to somebody that was psyching out over said friend.

“Yeah, sometimes!” Dowoon refused to look at him, eyes circling over his old friend, the floor, once more. But he could hear the weariness spilling from his voice, just as it had the last time they’d met. It was consistently overshadowed by enthusiasm and upbeatness, but nonetheless, it was omnipresent in undertones. “It’s more of a hobby than anything. I doubt I can go far with it.”

Looking at his downcast face, Dowoon realised how little he knew about him. He was a newcomer, that was ascertained, but that was where his knowledge of the boy before him came to stop. He tried to piece together the information he already had about him: he’d been navigating the roads until he’d presumably had a run-in with bandits. Had he been running from something or leaping towards another? Had he been forced to leave or had he done it of his own will? And more importantly, why had he chosen to come to _this_ unpromising town out of all the other options?

Nothing arose from his analysis except for a multitude of questions. And Dowoon, unfortunately for him, was not adept enough to look for answers to them on his own.

“Uh, should we leave?” Younghyun spoke up moments later, his gaze lingering on Dowoon’s shoulder and then slowly moving up to his eyes, causing Dowoon’s brain to short circuit. Why were all of his stares so heavy? They acted exactly like black holes with their extreme gravity, fencing the other person’s vision off, tunneling it so that the only thing they could see was him. His eyes were mesmerising, drawing Dowoon in like nectar draws in bees. And he didn’t know how to feel about that.

“Yeah.”

Younghyun started walking away rather hastily then, his shoulder brushing against Dowoon’s. His accidental touch left the affected portion burning, but not unpleasantly. It was more warm and inviting than bitter and spiteful. Perhaps Dowoon was reading it all wrong; Younghyun’s posture didn’t suggest a speck of kindness, looming darkly at the exit to the lyre room. Yet, he was ready to take the chance, to maybe initiate a conversation that could possibly answer the dozen questions he was juggling around.

Surging forward with a bout of courage and persistently ignoring the part of his mind that kept screaming, “why are you interested in him, anyway?”, he followed after Younghyun, keeping his pace steady so as not to alarm himself too much with his decision.

He knew that he was going to regret it as soon as a response was relayed towards him. He knew that he was going to be spending hours upon hours after this encounter, thinking of all things he could’ve done differently. Despite this, Dowoon allowed himself to speak.

“Do you want to walk home? Together?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am TIRED but i hope this chapter met your expectations! i'm not too happy with it and slightly rushed it but i hope it was enjoyable nevertheless.  
> also i'm afraid to say that this may be the last update for a month or so, since my exams are starting from next week :/ i'm sorry! i hope that the updating schedule can go back to normal soon.

**Author's Note:**

> the 'song' that dowoon's mother sang to him as a lil alteration of the poem 'The Boy with Fire in his Eyes' by Daniel Nairn.  
> hope u liked the chapter!  
> fat disclaimer: title inspired by song of the same name by u.f.o!


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